


Lost And Found

by purecamp



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, life is strange inspired anyone????, oh boy, oh boy oh boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 10:17:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12430707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purecamp/pseuds/purecamp
Summary: t’s been five weeks since alaska went missing from her college, which she attended with girlfriend sharon and best friend jinkx. then, out on a walk at one in the morning, sharon finds her.





	Lost And Found

**Author's Note:**

> A/N - :)
> 
> ^^ this is the artificialqueens a/n that i wrote at the time. this was written and posted feb 8th 2017

It had been five weeks. Five weeks of not knowing where Alaska was. Five weeks of bitterly wishing she had woken up before Alaska could have left, out of the college campus and into the quiet danger of the early morning. Five weeks of spending the daytime arguing with police officers, college professors, parents, students and anyone who would listen. Five weeks of spending the night-time crying, drinking too much, lashing out at poor Jinkx when she tried to help, sobbing into Jinkx’s shoulder when the fits of rage went away.

Sharon sat on her bed, knees tucked into her chest, staring at the pictures she’d tacked onto the wall opposite her. In reality, her eyes were glassy, gazing into thin air rather than the pictures, but they made a nice excuse as to why she was sitting still and alone. Night had fallen a long time ago, the only light in the room coming from the curtains which she hadn’t touched since Jinkx had opened them that morning. It was blue, the feeble light that came in. The colour of the night and Alaska’s favourite dress and Sharon’s mood. It was so dark that Sharon couldn’t even see the pictures before her, but she didn’t need to look to be able to describe each one. All of them had Alaska in, so all of them were committed to her memory.

What had once been a beautiful display of memories had been turned into a frenzy of what looked like utter nonsense, but made perfect sense to Sharon. Her entire wall had been transformed, scribbled on with red and black markers, with pictures, notes, scraps of writing, parking tickets and everything else she could find pinned up there. Every night she would study her evidence, read through her annotations, scribble more on when she found connections between them. Once it had been dedicated to pictures of her and her girlfriend. These days it held Alaska, car registrations, local snaps of the town and the campus. The circles and arrows and question marks made her seem crazy. Maybe she was.

Jinkx pushed open the door to the room gingerly, clearly expecting Sharon to be asleep. When she saw that the room was filled with the inky blue of night, the curtains parted and the window open, she sighed deeply. With a series of quick movements, she switched on the lamp and moved to close the window and curtains, shutting the outside world down. Then she sat on the end of Sharon’s bed, watching her forlornly.

“Sharon. Come on. It’s one in the morning, you need to be getting some sleep.” She murmured softly.

“Can’t.” Was Sharon’s brusque, quiet reply. “Can’t stop thinking about her.”

Jinkx swallowed. “I know, Needles. I know.”

“She’s out there, Jinkx. I know it. She’s out there. And all this – ” She gestured helplessly at her evidence. “It all means something. If I can just connect the dots, I can find her. She’s out there.”

Jinkx reached over and pulled Sharon into her arms, holding her tight. “The police will find her, Sharon. If she’s out there, they’ll find her.”

Sharon went rigid. She wrenched herself out of Jinkx’s grip, hugging her knees even tighter to her chest and refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead as her eyes filled with tears. She sat still, frozen, trying her best not to allow her brimming eyes to spill.

“No, they won’t.” She whispered, a lump in her throat. “They called off the search today.”

Sharon was crushed. As if it wasn’t enough – as if it wasn’t fucking enough that Alaska had gone missing in the early hours of the morning with seemingly no traces – the police had ended their search. Mumbles about insufficient evidence and tragedies were all Sharon remembered about the conversation. She knew she had screamed down the phone, yelling words that were horribly inappropriate and feeling her throat going hoarse and raw as she let it all out, hurling abuse into the speaker. How fucking dare they give up. How dare they discount everything she had done, worked hours to put together, as a teenager desperately looking for nothing. She had screamed so loudly down the phone that every girl in the dormitory had opened their doors to watch her, red in the face and bawling angrily. Teachers rushed in, three professors and the councillor too. All watched, stunned, not sure how to react, as Sharon screamed at the officers. How dare they give up. How dare they declare the case closed. The case would never be closed.

“I have to find her.” Sharon whispered once more, angrily swiping at her tears. “They’re not looking. And I’m so close, Jinkx. Look at this. It’s in here somewhere. It’s-”

Jinkx cut her off, the level-headed ginger now crying too. “Please, Sharon.” She begged. “You have to stop this. This is killing you. It’s been five weeks. I-If Alaska was alive, we’d know. I don’t want to say that’s she’s – say that she’s…d-”

“Then don’t.” Sharon growled sharply. “Don’t say it if it isn’t true. I know I’m going to find her.”

Jinkx relented. She missed Alaska too, one of her best friends since she’d joined the college. Alaska was one of those people you couldn’t help but love. Her smile and her laugh made the sun appear on even the darkest of days. It was clear to everyone in the college that an eternity of winters had descended upon them. If the heavy clouds that lingered in the sky everyday were anything to go off, it meant that the sunshine really had disappeared from everyone’s lives.

“I’m going out.” Sharon said suddenly, the lack of hope and life in her voice sending Jinkx over the edge of her tears. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“For the love of God, Sharon.” Jinkx sniffed, trying to take hold of the girl’s sleeve as she stood up. “Just to smoke?”

Sharon shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. Hopefully I’ll go missing like Alaska did.”

“Don’t!” Jinkx hissed, her voice pitching. “Don’t say that, Sharon. Please. You’d break me. You can’t say that.”

“I can. If she’s disappeared, I can too. I don’t wanna be here. I can’t be here. Everything reminds me of her.”

Jinkx drew in a shuddering breath. “Come back soon. If you’re not back by six am, I’m going to call the police. You can’t do this to me.”

Sharon’s bottom lip trembled, but she left without another word.

The dormitory corridor, like her room had been, was dark and cast in shades of blue from the night. Outside Alaska’s dorm, police tape sealed the door. On the floor, flowers, cards and wishes for her safe return took up most of the space. Sharon knew half of them had been written by her own hand. Despite the fact that everyone was mourning her presence, it was Sharon who had insisted she was still alive. Many had withdrawn themselves to the thought that Alaska was dead, and had done their best to move on. Not Sharon.

She carried on through campus, exiting the dormitory and heading towards the parking lot. There was a wall near there that was the perfect height for sitting on and swinging your legs whilst you smoked, although plenty of shadier business had gone down there too. It wasn’t unusual to find used needles and syringes amongst the bushes. You had to watch your step.

Finally at the wall, Sharon lit her cigarette and took a drag in, staring up at the moon as it glowed upon the campus. Everywhere, the trees, the fountain, the paved slabs and the exterior walls, were plastered with missing posters. Alaska’s bright smile was all over the school, her name and information underneath. The numbers listed were the police and Sharon’s. Each one had been printed by Sharon herself, and distributed by Sharon and Jinkx. It had taken days, and both had truanted from their lessons to put them up.

As the smoke left her lips, Sharon bent down to pick up the one that lay near her foot. A dark footstep marred the centre, right where Alaska’s grinning face was. With some care, she straightened it out, stroking the picture and wishing it were the real Alaska, right in front of her. Someone had stepped on the poster. Someone had already forgotten about her. Someone no longer cared.

Rage blinded her. Without thinking of anything else, she started to walk towards the road leading into the town. It was far too late for a college girl to be safe, out at night on her own, but she didn’t fucking care. Alaska was out there somewhere and Sharon was going to find her. If the police had given up, that only gave Sharon more reasons to go looking.

-

She hardly realized how far she’d walked until she recognized the upcoming bridge, one of her favourite hang-out spots in the pre-Alaska days. Sharon and the rest of the punks used to take refuge under the bridge, on the bank of the river, smoking and shooting up away from prying eyes. It was better than the wall in the parking lot, but as of late the place had felt too sinister for anyone to visit, and it had fallen into misuse. Not even needing a second thought, Sharon immediately started to approach it. A feeling of foreboding washed over her, her instinct screaming at her to continue on. Something was off about that place. She needed to see it.

It didn’t take long once she had broken into a run, her long legs ambling through the night and skirting round until she reached the footpath leading to the river bank. She didn’t need a torch, the pure white moonlight serving as light enough to see. At least, fractured light reflected on the broken beer bottles and pointed syringes enough that she could see where her feet were stepping.

Within a few seconds, she stood underneath the bridge, on the bank, gazing down at her face in the river. Then she was walking, not looking where. She just walked away from civilisation, following the river as it flowed silently past. Watching her pale, tear-stained face in the reflection.

Alaska had never been to the river. She was new to the area, only joining when she joined the college. Sharon had plans to take her everywhere, even had a list of places they needed to go, but not even half of them had been completed yet. That fateful night had been so perfect, so wonderful, that the juxtaposition of her disappearance only served to feel like it had to happen. Nothing so good, so amazing, could happen without consequence. Alaska had looked so beautiful, her eyes sparkling and her blonde hair styled in a way she never usually wore to class. Sharon hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from her, save for when they kissed. They had kissed a lot. Sharon’s strange music had played in the background, songs that Alaska had grown to love over time, and they spent most of the evening after their meal just kissing. It didn’t need to escalate. The moment had been tender and sweet enough to tide them over.

Then it all went wrong, Sharon fell asleep with Alaska slumbering in her arms, then Alaska awoke in the early morning and had presumably taken a walk, then a phone call told the school and Sharon that she was missing, and then five weeks passed with no signs of her, no leads, no evidence, nothing that indicated she had ever even existed except the broken hearts of those who knew her. It was devastating.

Sharon stared down at her face in the water, her legs finally collapsing from tiredness. As it turned out, she wasn’t too far from the town, the river doubling back as she unconsciously followed it. She looked exhausted, and sick. Her eyes held the lost, shattered look of a girl on the brink of destruction. But then, her vision tunnelled.

Alaska.

She wasn’t just staring at her own face. In the water, as beautiful as the day she had disappeared, was Alaska. The sound that pierced the night after that, the sound that roused many from their sleep, was that of a horrified scream. A scream so hollow and broken that it could have shattered windows and brought even the coldest of hearts to a standstill. Sharon fell to her knees, wailing in anguish, and plunged as much of her body as she could into the freezing depths of the water. Had to get her out. Had to save Alaska. Had to find her.

The second she dragged her onto the bank, she lurched to the side and retched, gagging and spitting as the smell hit her. This couldn’t be Alaska. It couldn’t. The foul stench was that of a body that was rotting, but Alaska couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. No one would kill her. No one would dump her in a river. This wasn’t Alaska. It couldn’t be.

After the contents of her stomach had been thoroughly emptied, Sharon’s retching was nothing but dry and empty. She clamped her lips shut and, with as much courage as she could muster with her tear-filled eyes and churning stomach, knelt beside Alaska.

“No,” She whispered, cradling Alaska’s cold face. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were blue.

“No.” She whispered again. “NO! ALASKA!”

It couldn’t be her. She couldn’t be dead. This was fake. A prank. A dream.

She screamed again. “Alaska! Alaska, no! No, please, please not her! It can’t be her, please don’t be her!”

Fate cared about no one. It didn’t care how much she begged.


End file.
